Stunning Photos: Watch a Standoff Between Juvenile Cougars and Coyotes Unfold

You might think that mountain lions don't fear much, but if you're a young cougar and a pack of coyotes show up to chase you away, you can be darn sure that you'd turn tail and zip away. That's the backstory to these stunning photos taken by Lori Iverson, an outdoor recreation planner at the National Elk Refuge in Wyoming, and posted on Fish and Wildlife Service Mountain Prairie's Flickr page.

The pair of young cougars ended up in the wrong neighborhood, and according to Iverson, the coyotes chased them off until the cats found refuge on a fence. In this shot you can see the cats trying to hide.

That didn't work, and you can see here that one cougar dipped out as the coyotes showed up to chase them away.

My buddy Ryan Haupt, who sent me the photos and who lives in Wyoming, says he thinks the cougars are somewhere between two and three years old based on their lack of spots. They're also pretty small, and seeing two together would be unexpected for adults.

In the end, both young mountain lions got away. Seeing the two species in a standoff is a truly fascinating interaction. Mountain lion ranges don't tend to overlap with coyotes too much, as the former prefers trees to ambush from while coyotes are often found in more open spaces, although they are more flexible.

But at least one study has shown that their ranges can overlap during winter, when snow and cold weather make resources more scarce. It's not technically winter these days, but I was out in Wyoming a couple weeks ago and I can vouch that it's still pretty damn wintry out there. That might explain why the cougars were roaming the plains, but in any case, it made for one hell of a showdown.